Claire Batchelor - Biography
Claire has always been enchanted by music. Being brought up on a healthy diet of classical, 70’s prog, 80’s new wave and 90’s alt rock, means her ears are very much open to new sounds, harmonies and textures. She embraces leftfield influences such as Bjork, PJ Harvey and Radiohead, alongside chilled acoustic folk and contemporary classical music.
Mesmerised by watching her father play as a young girl, she thought that to play guitar you magically waved your hands over the frets. Noticing Claire’s curiosity, her father bought her first guitar for her seventh birthday, (where she soon realised you actually have to press down on the strings…) and her love for the instrument grew. Later on she progressed to piano, bass, percussion, singing and songwriting, and at sixteen studied Music and Music Technology. Claire’s academic studies concluded with a degree on the south coast, where she gained a first class BA Hons in Music Performance and Composition. This course included scoring music to picture which she took to like a duck to water and fell in love with immediately. Throughout her education Claire carried on writing, recording and performing songs in various live outfits."A striking vocal with emotional richness" – Stuart Robb, Jam Central Records
As a graduate Claire composed and conducted her impressionist orchestral piece ‘Bloom' for Worthing Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, and composed two songs for independent film ‘Black Ink' which was screened in Leicester Square. In 2008 she carried out intern work with the sound team on BBC drama Silent Witness, composed the orchestral score for the short thriller ‘Oranges and Lemons' by director Simon Spender, (previously known for directing adverts for MTV, Woolwich, and the Metro newspaper) and all the while honing her composition, song writing and performance skills further.
"Her work helps to shape and pace our film, bringing great emotion and pathos to a difficult subject matter. Claire’s professionalism and talent is simply fantastic and we can't wait to work with her again soon!" – Alastair Clayton & Stuart Laws, Director/Producer, The Silent Cancer
Claire is now set to further her music to picture career, after scoring the emotionally charged documentary ‘The Silent Cancer’ for Turtle Canyon Media, Pinewood Studios, and the hit YouTube series, ‘Becoming Batman’. Her songwriting has culminated into the writing, recording and performance of her debut EP, an electro-acoustic affair entitled ‘Wish’, which is gaining press and highly positive reviews across the board. Her ultimate goals now are to continue composing for media and take her role as a recording artist to the next level.
